Division of Knowledge between Religious and Secular in the Madrasas Must Be Abolished to Stem the Tide of Islam’s Continued Decline

It is well known that
Islamic civilization had seen phenomenal advancement of knowledge during
the Abbasid Period (roughly mid-8th to mid-13thcentury) - known as its
Golden era. The Muslims drew on the resources that came to their hands –
the Greco-Roman heritage and the scholars of other religions who were
either native citizens or gravitated to Baghdad from different parts of
the world to study universal sciences and fields of knowledge that were
forbidden in their lands. Thus, they inaugurated and sustained an
intellectual revolution that is captured in these words by two of the
most eminent scholars of this era:

“Islam, which is only
half a dozen centuries younger than Christianity, created a long and
brilliant civilization, which is responsible for much of the way we are
today. … When a few medieval monks were desperately trying to preserve
what little they knew of Greco-Roman civilization, academies and
universities flourished in the splendid cities of the Muslim lands”–
Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair, Islam, Empire of Faith, BBC Series, UK
2001, p. 11.

“Science is the most
momentous contribution of Arab [Muslim] civilization to the modern
world; but its fruits were slow in ripening. Not until long after
Moorish [Islamic] culture had sunk back into darkness did the giant to
which it had given birth, rise to its might. – Robert Briffault
(1867-1948), Making of Humanity, p. 202.

With this summary
introduction to Islam’s role in the advancement of universal knowledge,
we come to the caption of this article that speaks for itself.

What has happened in
the intellectual realm of Islam over the last few centuries is just the
reverse of what Islam saw during the half a millennium of the Abbasid
period. The historical background to this retrogression can be summed up
as follows:

The surrender of
Baghdad (1258 AD), the capital of the pan-Islamic Caliphate to the
Mongol forces saw, apart from the gruesome massacre of its inhabitants,
total eradication of its intellectual resources. The vast Abbasid
libraries were burnt to ashes and the House of Wisdom -the unrivalled
international center of learning of the era was destroyed. The ensuing
centuries (14th – 17th) saw an explosive outburst of intellectual
activity and free thinking in Europe that was driven by use of reason
and thirst for Enlightenment and knowledge – known as ‘renaissance.’
This resulted in phenomenal growth in literary, artistic, philosophical,
intellectual, commercial and military fields. This, in the ensuing
centuries (18th-20th) ushered Europe into an era of great inventions and
discoveries, proliferation of experimental research; exploitation of
the forces of nature, and conversion of raw materials into an endless
array of products in increasingly efficient and automated plants
culminating in the modern urbanized industrialized world that is
light-years ahead of the medieval ages.

As Europe was availing
the fruits of its advancement and transforming its cold, dark and
ramshackle villages into shining imageries of paradise (in the words of
poet Laureate Muhammad Iqbal) and dotting its towns and cities with
splendid museums, libraries, hospitals, universities, and rows upon rows
of picturesque residential houses complete with all amenities –
gardens, parks, shopping arcades, pharmacies, community centers – among
other things, the orthodox Ulema remained in a state of denial and
declared all scientific and civilisational advancement of Europe as the
handiwork of Shaytan. Accordingly, they divided the domain of knowledge
between worldly and religious, forbade the learning of all European
languages and abhorred all scientific and technological knowledge and
advancement. Their hostility against the so called European knowledge
was so intense that among other things, they burnt down an observatory
in Turkey in 1580 - just a year after its erection, and closed down the
first printing press in the Islamic world in the same city in 1745. Even
as recently as the later part of the nineteenth century, the Ulema in
British India fought tooth and nail against the establishment of a
modern university by Syed Ahmed. Ironically, to this day Muslims are
bogged down with a religious education curriculum that is centered round
the secondary sources of Islam rooted and stagnated in the medieval
ages and often treat universal sciences in the sidelines.

This division of
knowledge between Scientific/ secular and religious is nothing short of a
denial to probe the ‘Signs of God’ as repeatedly invoked in the Qur’an.
There are verses that speak about the movement of heavenly bodies in
their orbits (21:33, 31:29, 39:5), water cycle (2:164), embryonic
development in a woman’s womb (23:12-14), immiscibility of soft and
saline streams of water (25:53, 27:61, 55:19), reduction in oxygen
content of air at higher altitudes (6:125), graduated darkness in ocean
depth (24:40) for example – that simply cannot be understood without
scientific knowledge.

Besides, God alone is
the source of all knowledge and it was in this very spirit that the
Muslims explored and advanced all prevalent branches of knowledge during
their golden era (Abbasid period) drawing freely on non-Muslim sources.
So dismissing scientific or secular knowledge in later centuries was a
suicidal retrogression that gradually eroded the foundations of Islamic
civilization, conduced to its colonization, and in the post-colonial
era, rendered it politically weak, turbulent and unstable, and
educationally and industrially backward - and with turn of events in
this era, a potential breeding ground of terror, violent sectarianism
and extremism. In the words of Altaf Hussain Hali, the famous poet and
thinker of British India – ‘If one has to see a nation’s downfall
exceeding all limits – it is Islam’s incapability to rise after its
fall,” (translated from Urdu).

Hence, to stem the
tide of Islam’s continuing decline, there is an urgent need to treat the
pursuit of all universal sciences and knowledge as part of God’s trust
to humanity This is to be accomplished by incorporating all branches of
universal, secular and scientific knowledge in the Islamic religious
schools (madrasas), so that those graduating from these schools should
qualify to join the secular academic world and become doctors,
engineers, lawyers, accountants, scientists and professionals in other
fields and thus reinvigorate the foundations of Islamic civilization.
The vast theological content of madrasa curriculum that is rooted in the
medieval ages can be reduced to one core ‘religious’ subject covering
the universal dimensions of Qur’anic message and some social works
(community service) – for, to be a good Muslim, a growing school
student does not need any knowledge of the secondary sources of Islam as
taught in the madrasas - other than familiarity with the Pillars of
Faith that he acquires at home or in the local mosque even without going
to any school. However, as Islam’s secondary sources, notably the
hadith is of highly technical – having evolved more than a thousand
years ago, “it should be reserved for enlightened specialists who have
attained sufficient maturity, knowledge, and training to distinguish
between weak and reliable Hadith, and not to confuse them with the Word
of God.” - Essential Message of Islam, p. 363

Let this short article
be an eye opener for the Custodians of Islamic Faith who play a
decisive role in deciding the curriculum of the madrasas world-wide.

Muhammad Yunus, a
Chemical Engineering graduate from Indian Institute of Technology, and a
retired corporate executive has been engaged in an in-depth study of
the Qur’an since early 90’s, focusing on its core message. He has
co-authored the referred exegetic work, which received the approval of
al-Azhar al-Sharif, Cairo in 2002, and following restructuring and
refinement was endorsed and authenticated by Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl of
UCLA, and published by Amana Publications, Maryland, USA, 2009.